


Moments Lost

by orphan_account



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Requited Unrequited Feelings, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24537718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There are things that are allowed to be, and things that are not. Ginoza knows this well.Somehow, it doesn't make the hurt less.
Relationships: Ginoza Nobuchika/Kougami Shinya
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	Moments Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



Kougami’s quarters are deep down in the basement, where the enforcers’ barracks have no windows and the scent of damp earth permeates the air. It’s here, too, seeping through walls pieced together with metal panels, and Ginoza grimaces. The buzz of cheap fluorescent lighting is too loud; his footsteps, the soles of combat boots against metal stairs, are too loud. It’s so easy to lose track of his thoughts. To lose track of what he is.

Ginoza wonders why he finds himself walking this way every so often – far too often. He’s devoid of reason when the days are long like this, and he’s bone tired and weary. But Ginoza is bone tired and weary, so he lets his body follow his feet to Kougami.

His door is unlocked. It always is.

The air in the room is stale and still, but Kougami is even stiller, splayed on the couch with outstretched legs, hands behind his head and eyes closed. He looks serene, or perhaps like plastic in the dimness, and just for a moment, fear is a spear through Ginoza’s chest.

But then Kougami’s eyelids flutter, and Ginoza knows that _he_ knows he’s there, standing in the doorway, waiting. He must’ve heard the door open, at least, maybe the rhythm of his approaching boots on the stairwell. Ginoza waits, for it’s not his room. Even if it were, there’s only one small couch, and Kougami is sprawled across it. So he stays standing, waiting for acknowledgement until the panic in his blood sours, curdling into anxiety. He should leave, Ginoza thinks, instead of acting like a fool, but his feet stay planted, hand on the doorknob.

“Gino,” Kougami says finally, quietly, looking him straight in the eyes. And Ginoza hates the way he averts his own gaze, how his fingers find long-overgrown strands of hair.

“Kougami,” he bites in return, forcing his chin up to glare down. It feels comfortable - the recited sort of comfortable he’s been practicing ever since that day. Ginoza doesn’t dwell on the before, when his eyes didn’t need to be hardened and his tone could admit softer feelings.

“Do you need something?” Kougami asks.

This time, Ginoza almost retorts if he must need something to be here, before catching himself. Inspectors don’t just visit enforcers’ rooms, after all. Certainly not him, whose veins carry promises of a clouded hue. But Ginoza doesn’t know what he needs. Or perhaps he does, but it’s not the kind of thing that can be put into words - not here, with Kougami dressed in loose sweats in an ill-kept barrack; with a gun tucked into the holster that hangs at the hip of his own starched uniform.

Instead, Ginoza clears his throat and invites himself in, since Kougami still hasn’t. When he shuts the door, he’s suddenly aware of how small – how cramped – this room really is. It’s barely big enough for one person, and now two bodies are two too many. Ginoza can hear the sound of Kougami’s breaths; they share the same stale air. He can feel Kougami’s eyes on him, too, as he makes his way to the mess of photographs pinned above an untidy desk.

There’s nothing new to say. There never is.

“You’re obsessed,” Ginoza accuses, staring at Sasayama’s corpse and the blurred outline of Makishima. He has an urge to rip it down, to burn it, to crush it beneath the heel of his boot.

“And?”

Kougami stands, now, drawing himself up to his full height, arms crossed across his chest. And it couldn’t be clearer that he just doesn’t _care_ , doesn’t care that he’s an enforcer whose own existence is like putty in Ginoza’s hands. For a moment, a dangerous thing in Ginoza wishes he didn’t care, either. Kougami studies him with steady, piercing eyes, as if he can seem right through him. See every word of every lie Ginoza tells himself and Kougami.

“You have a one-track mind,” Ginoza presses. _I wish you didn’t_.

“That what you came here to tell me, Gino?” Kougami asks, a tired roughness to the husk in his voice rather than an edge. He uncrosses his arms to run calloused fingers through unruly tufts of hair.

There are dark circles beneath Kougami’s eyes, like bruises on pale skin that cannot heal, and Ginoza knows that he’s awake even when he’s not – hunting for him in the day and for Sasayama in his dreams. Guilt sinks fangs into Ginoza’s chest. But this is Kougami’s own fault. His fault for losing control. A mistake that Ginoza will never make.

“No. I came here to warn you,” Ginoza hears his mouth say, thinking that yes, there might’ve been a reason he came to Kougami after all. “The next time you take Inspector Tsunemori to meet Saiga-sensei, there will be consequences.”

He glares, expecting an argument, but Kougami’s sturdy shoulders sag. He says nothing. Ginoza is the one who opens his mouth again.

“I believe. It is a strong possibility,” he amends without wanting to.

And Ginoza flushes as he says this, but Kougami’s smirking, giving him a once-over that could be coloured warmer if only the room weren’t so dim.

“You believe, Gino?” Kougami challenges. But he doesn’t wait for a reply, which might be for the best because Ginoza has none.

“You could stay until you remember why you really came here,” Kougami says now, back turned to Ginoza as he bends down to open his mini-fridge. There are several cans of beer, he sees, and when Kougami turns to him once more, eyes flitting to his own, Ginoza knows exactly what he’s offering.

And Ginoza looks at Kougami, dressed in loose sweats with bags under his eyes instead of a sharp uniform and sharper smile; looks at the beer and the too-small couch and imagines their thighs touching and his rasped laughter and the heat of his body.

And it occurs to Ginoza that perhaps Kougami has invited _him_ to invite himself in all along. He feels rage, as sad as it is pointed, and wonders if it’s directed at Kougami or himself or the pictures on the wall.

“You’re an enforcer,” Ginoza just says. His voice is cool – too cool, cooler than he meant it to be, but some things are impossible to take back, even small ones like this. _I’m an inspector_ , he doesn’t need to add.

Kougami shrugs. He grabs a can of beer and pads back to the sofa where they could’ve sat side-by-side, plopping down right in the center where the worn cushions meet. His thighs are spread-eagle as he pops the tab; there’s no space for Ginoza, not anymore.

“Come back when you remember,” Kougami says, and it sounds so much like a command that Ginoza flinches. He fixes Ginoza with a look that he can’t decipher. How could he, when he is afraid to understand him? But inspectors don’t _need_ to understand enforcers, and should not try.

That’s right, Ginoza makes himself think. That’s all right.

“Goodnight, Kougami,” he replies, and turns without looking back.

But Ginoza doesn’t close the door behind him, and he can feel the weight of Kougami’s gaze and hear the can as it’s tossed into the bin, still heavy with half-finished beer. And if Ginoza keeps thinking of Kougami, it’s only because the sound seems to echo even though the staircase is so narrow, mingling with the static of cheap lights and the ringing of his footsteps against metal stairs.

The air feels heavier than it had in Kougami’s room when Ginoza makes it to the top again. 


End file.
